There’s a tiny, raspy voice inside me that I’m doing my very best to beat down. It rants and raves and postures – but only when LUFC do something competent. It doesn’t want to celebrate improvement, three points, in fact any of the incentives offered to a rational supporter.

I’m just about winning in my fight against this irrational little nark within – but I can’t help wondering if, at a time when many of us are disgruntled with the overarching regime at Elland Road, others are also finding any signs of progress made on the pitch a little emotionally confusing?

No? Well, I’m going to continue anyway.

This sort of internal cheering against my club has happened on a lesser scale before. The national media’s not very well masked distaste for the club and their related love of a good transfer link of our players to A.N. Other Premier League poacher has meant I’ve occasionally had vague hopes for our latest ‘starlet’ to throw a few diabolical performances into the mix to get them off the scent, while outwardly screaming “go on Fabian, skin the f***er.”

But what’s going on now is a more long-term, slow-burning affair, given the old crone staunchly refuses to sell up/ give up/ kick the bucket (delete to taste) and appears to go to more and more elaborate lengths to alienate as time crawls on.

It’s now very hard, at least personally, not to see us succeed, have a brief period of elation, then have joy replaced by the image of a smug bearded tax-evader on a yacht pointing at himself in one of the cabin’s 360-degree mirrored surfaces, going “no you’re the bestest ever Chairman in the universe ever – oh stop it, you great cad – no you are, Kenneth, you really really are – well, I suppose, now you put it like that…”

I know that comes across like it was a dialogue with between Ken’s ego and super-ego, but it’s supposed to represent Ben Fry on speakerphone.

Anyway, this season is probably not going to be one of unmitigated doom. It’s quite likely to be not one covered in glory either, but I strongly suspect it’s going to be a hell of a lot closer to the latter. We may not have strengthened massively, but as goal-crazy and entertaining as it definitely is, the Championship’s general standard is at best inconsistent, at worst, a bit crap – meaning we can still do damage on more days than not.

With this in mind, there’s going to be many more of those thoughts of Ken preening as Ross slams in another to be gritted through this season. Presumably only some targeted brain surgery to remove all the residual memory and recognition of Bates will allow a goal celebration to be entirely pure again – at least until he’s replaced by someone better at the helm. Since Satan’s sons tend to live long, prosperous and healthy lives, there may be some wait for this, like.

Given the investment in the club we make in various ways, it’s highly unlikely that we could ever get to such a point of Bates distaste that we’re proactively wishing disaster to befall the lads. It’s thankfully more likely to appear as a saboteur afterthought.

Whatever machinations are going on in the background, wanting your team to be hopeless to prove a point against an enemy within is, well, a hopeless place to be – and such an absurdist position would be a perversion of your moronic mind that Ken would very likely enjoy, or at very least take sole credit for. And as many would testify, credit’s not something you’d want him anywhere near.

Seriously mate you and others like you need to stop obsessing about Bates and get back to supporting your team. It makes me cringe that you’d rather shout Bates Out than sing for Leeds United. You’ve seriously got your priorities all f**ked up. Forget about the old man and start enjoying the game again, if you get behind the lads they’ll reward you. Who knows, we might even get promoted and then you’ll really have something to be conflicted about!

derbyshirewhite

You’ve been reading Lenin again haven’t you? I recall “the worse it is, the better” was one of his sayings, waiting for the day when class struggle would lead to the overthrow of the Russian Cap’n Birdseye. Having said that I don’t think the Imperial Royal Family had a Simon Grayson figure to blame when it all went tits up.

Anonymous

There was Rasputin of course, who seemed to get the blame for most things – however, there the similarities stop as I understand his ability to organise a solid back four was unparalleled !

Anonymous

what about your nearest team if in derby after white any truth

chris

Well said iggy.

LeedsForLife

It’s pretty clear there are some who hate Bates more than they love and support Leeds Utd.

For them, any sign of success for the club suggests Bates isn’t getting everything wrong, and that can’t be right – it’s an insult to their pride and judgement, isn’t it? And that clearly matters more to them than the success of the great club the rest of us – the vast majority of us – love and support.

The damage those people do to the morale of the club, it’s players and supporters, is incalculable. Wonder why the defence is unsettled? A few big gobbed whingeing gits behind the goal won’t be helping one bit.

I wish they’d just go and watch some other team, because they’re not supporting Leeds Utd as it needs and deserves. A couple of hundred off the gate would be a small price for the improvement in atmosphere and morale.

What’s this about ‘investing’ in the club? That’s not what you’re doing at all. You pay money to watch a football match. to support a football team, to be in the intensely atmospheric company of fellow supporters, to be entertained, to take advantage of the facilities the club makes available. But you will never get a financial return on the money you spend. The club is a business and you have no share in the ownership of it. You are a customer, not an investor. Of course, supporters may also be shareholders and for them the forum of complaint is the AGM/EGM – a forum which doesn’t clamour for Bates’ departure because those genuine investors know their investment’s growing.

Isn’t this the blog that was recently proudly announcing itself as offering propaganda against Bates? That might be laughably ironic, but it’s perversely disregarding the interests of Leeds Utd.

So it’s very good to read today’s posting. Self-awareness of the blog’s facets of hyperbolic negativity suggests there’s hope and humour after all.

Anonymous

there are more than a couple of thousand off the gate and footballers and football representatives are insular they do not care one jot of what i you or anyone else thinks of them that applies to all clubs

irving08

LIke Leeds for Life, I am dismayed by the anti-Bates stuff. While I disagree with elements of Bates’ strategy – notably the undue weight given to corporates – I am prepared to swallow these reservations in the interests of the team. Saturday’s anti-Bates chanting was untimely, self-indulgent and pathetic.

This is the problem that stops us addressing the problem though, and makes Bates essentially bulletproof. When things are going badly, it’s fine to question the Bates regime, to protest against his ownership and complain about the ongoing mistreatment of our fans, but when things are going well on the pitch, it’s somehow wrong. Things start going wrong, Bates blames the manager. Things running smoothly, he’ll give himself all the praise and use it against the fans that “dissent” claiming it affects the team (which is absolute BS)

This idea that protesting against the ownership somehow makes certain groups of supporters “lesser” fans seems to stem from this school of thought too and is further BS fuelled by Bates propaganda wagon. I’ve never supported Bates from day one because I know he’s bad for Leeds United – proven by the 6 years it’s taken him to get us back to where we started via two administrations, dwindling ticket sales, increased prices, endless legal worries, constant insults aimed at the fans etc… (you know all this) – but through it all I’ve supported the team, attended more games than the majority of his apologist supporters (and the man himself) and never once seen any evidence of anti-Bates chants affecting the team. It’s nonsense. We’ve had similar success and similar rough and smooth patches with and without the protests.

85% of our supporters were in favour of protests (LUST survey) when things were going bad, but now we’re back to square one all over again. It’s like battered housewife syndrome – every so often, they drum up a little courage and insist “enough is enough” only to be won back over by a brief moment of change. The problem doesn’t go away just because the results improve I’m afraid. Deep down, Bates is still a wife-beating c**t (metaphorically speaking of course)

LeedsForLife

“I’ve never supported Bates from day one”.

We know, but don’t you see how much that undermines your whole attitude and argument?

Everything you say is based on what he was and did before he came to Leeds, and you’re completely unwilling to assess anything he’s done since objectively.

We are NOT where we were six years ago. Then we were disintegrating under the weight of impossible debt (that wasn’t of his making at all), we had a squad of massively overpaid misfits and journeymen (all the offloadable assets having been disposed of by Krasner etc, leaving far too little quality to survive in the Championship), we had clueless managers and, most significantly, we were going DOWN fast, unstoppably and probably to oblivion since the club was utterly and enormously bankrupt. Now we have no debt, a very healthy squad of motivated players with a controlled wage bill, a bright and highly motivated manager and we’re on the way UP at a sustainable speed.

Bates doesn’t get everything right, he’s an abrasive old sod who doesn’t seem to care whether he’s liked, and he does exploit the supporters. But to deny the club has been turned around by him and is now moving steadily in the right direction, just because you didn’t like him before he came to Leeds and you still don’t is just… what? I don’t want to be rude to a fellow fan who cares deeply and knows a lot, but to me it just seems very silly.

It’s the club that matters, not Bates.

As for this stuff about you can’t have a go at Bates when things are going badly and you can’t have a go at him when things are going well… that’s plainly nonsense because you’re always having a go at him! I read what you wrote as meaning you don’t want to stop having a go at him just because things are getting better or even going quite well. Let’s face it, when we win the Premiership you’ll still be ranting about how bad he is for the club.

You seem to think that anyone who doesn’t hate Bates and doesn’t think that everything he does at Leeds is ruinous has been gulled by Bates’ propaganda. Hey, aren’t you the one who thinks the BBC is impartial? So a fat lot you understand about propaganda, then! But I’m very alert to it, as it happens, and I can assure you that my opinions of Bates’ influence on the club are not based on any propaganda, but on an objective awareness of the highly manifest improvements in the club’s wellbeing and direction of progress since he took over. And I’ve never liked him, either, about which I’m pretty sure he doesn’t give a damn.

It’s not BS. It undermines confidence, especially of the players. You can’t or don’t want to see that from your viewpoint, but from mine it’s painfully obvious. The anti-Bates propaganda is undermining the morale and confidence of the club and the success of the team. That wouldn’t be so bad if it was really justifiable, but it isn’t – it’s mostly just about him being ex-Chelsea and ungenerous to the supporters.

Assuming you don’t moderate this, thanks for letting me have a go at you on this, your own blog. That’s quality.

“As for this stuff about you can’t have a go at Bates when things are going badly and you can’t have a go at him when things are going well… that’s plainly nonsense because you’re always having a go at him! I read what you wrote as meaning you don’t want to stop having a go at him just because things are getting better or even going quite well. Let’s face it, when we win the Premiership you’ll still be ranting about how bad he is for the club.”

If we win the Prem with a disillusioned fan base, ridiculously high ticket prices less and less people seem able to afford (considering recent attendances), a chairman whose more interested in lining his own pockets than investing in the playing squad and a wage cap that makes keeping our most important players impossible, then I’ll not only forgive Bates, but I’ll have a mural of him painted on the side of my house and rename the site in his honour.

It’s taken two administrations to get us to the position we’re now in and the highest ST prices bar four Premier League clubs. Considering admin wipes the debt, the “steady ship” you all love to talk about is the VERY least I expect when no money is being spent on the squad. Christ, Peter Ridsdale could keep Leeds afloat with the current pricing and a similar aversion to spending on players. Any idiot could.

As for a lack of balance, I was actually complimentary to Bates only a couple of weeks back after the radio interview where he DIDN’T slag our support off, appeared to genuinely sympathise with the fans as opposed to patronising them and was pretty open with regards to deadline day – but since then he’s gone back to his old ways of refusing to accept he’s ever got things wrong, and that it’s us “dissidents” that are clueless and trying to destroy the club (despite the fact he’s still the only person who has threatened to do that)

I accept I have a personal dislike of Bates – I can’t forgive anyone who threatens to liquidate my club, sorry if you find that stubborn, but he crossed a line there. But it’s not all personal, it’s one kick in the balls after another, which going back through the last two years of this site you can see well-documented. I’m not keen on being insulted and patronised twice weekly, I don’t like paying more for my season ticket now than I did to watch a Champions League squad, I couldn’t care less about a Leeds United museum and hotel and the disappearing funds drive me absolutely mental. But more than that, Bates’ smug “I’m your saviour” attitude (when he actually rigged the admin process) drives me up the wall.

irving08

It is incumbent on you, in view of your starting point (Bates’ ownership) to present us with a convincing counterfactual alternative. And please, none of this ‘us’and ‘them’ stuff any more: it insults our intelligence, and does no credit to yours. Likewise, quoting the results of a survey, without detailing the methodology, the question asked etc etc.

“85% of our supporters were in favour of protests (LUST survey) when things were going bad”

I thought that was pretty black and white? They asked their members if they were in favour of protests or not, and 85% were. Surely you understand how supporters clubs work? They ballot members with simple questions to determine where the majority, and by extension, the supporters club stands on certain issues.

As for the “us and them” argument, I totally agree, but given Bates brands anyone who dares question his regime as ‘dissidents, morons and sickpots’ that mentality has flourished – as evident in Leedsforlife’s argument below which is the tired “you’re too busy hating Bates to support LUFC” nonsense – because we pay £35 a game to come and shout at Bates, you know, like you do!

Read through the comments on these arguments regarding Bates, and you’ll see it’s those in support of Bates – an ever-decreasing minority, thankfully – that use the “us and them” approach. It’s fuelled by Bates and his “the vast majority of Leeds fans support my vision, but there’s a few noisy so and so’s” rants. Those opposed to Bates generally use the term ‘Leeds fans’ and nothing more, it’s me that chooses to separate the two because the divide is clearly visible – although more so on the web than at games where I’ve found very few fighting Bates’ corner – particularly away from home.

Anonymous

leeds fans want no more or less than any other fan at any other club ,some would argue indeed i do that you only have to look at the fans at the likes of barnet ,accrington .you know the suspects who in reality have no chance of cup glory or premier league football who are the true fans
League1 upwards and all football fans are fickle to a degree but you will not get any true fan saying they would rather ,leeds loose every week and not be competing for cups etc if it meant bates strategy was right ,to spend on the playing staff is fundamental to the life of a football club ..and clearly according to all concerned they did try bring in players so there was a strategy for improvement and it went wrong because most of them are not at Leeds

noone can tell me that grayson thought white ,lees Clayton were going to be such big players and that forsell and varynen were going to waltz into leeds on frees because i if they did would call them liars ..

there is no self loathing or a state of hatred towards us winning in fact the opposite exists because all leeds fans ever wanted and still do just like Chelsea , Barcelona and all the other successful clubs is players to get them there .

our strategy went pear shaped we stumbled on this success and that has nothing to with bates or even grayson it was to a degree luck so our hatred for bates in many ways is justified .
as for the papers he gets what he deserves from them he brings it on himself he slags of journalist bars them from the ground and whole organizations such as the beeb ,now that makes him no better than the lot in the red side of Manchester

LeedsForLife

It wasn’t Bates’s fault so your hatred of him is justified? What sort of sense does that make?

So you really think Grayson doesn’t see Clayton in training or the reserves or know how he’s done on loan? You really think he couldn’t see he was ready and able to do a better job than Johnson or Kilkenny? I don’t, and if you want to call me a liar I’ll tell you what I really think of you.

Forsell and Varynen didn’t ‘waltz into Leeds’. Their loan signings were astute business built on hard work and successful contacts. They could just as easily have ‘waltzed into’ other clubs, but it was Leeds that did the business with them. Why on earth do you want to knock the club for doing a good bit of business, something worth just a little bit of praise and pride?

The emphasis you place on “to spend on the playing staff is fundamental to the life of a football club” is very telling. Leeds has a very strong history of developing youth talent. Many of its greatest players came up that way. Others, notably John Giles, were acquired very cheaply. Of course clubs have to invest in their teams, but you seem to think that the only criterion of good management is that it spends a lot. Revie didn’t buy his team, he built it. O’Leary’s team was the result of Wilkinson’s building. Any crap Chelsea or Man City can spend umpteen millions of someone else’s money to buy success, but it takes a club of real quality to build that success for itself, and it’s a far more impressive, meaningful and sustainable success when it does.

If you think the antipathy of the BBC, Guardian and Mirror are caused by Bates then you’ve got a very limited understanding or memory. They, and some others (AH?), have a very long history of dislike of both the club and the city. They are very biased propagandist organisations whose agendas are contrary to the interests of the club, and keeping them at a distance is very sensible indeed. Any information they have about Leeds is likely to be twisted to suit their agendas, as they do with a lot of their reporting.

Okay, maybe you don’t want the team to lose, but you seem determined to be disparaging of everything about the club. You refuse to see that things are far better than they were five or six years ago, and are still getting better, and you just don’t seem to realise that constantly whingeing about every damned thing erodes the confidence of the club, the staff, the supporters and especially the players whose confidence is essential to winning games.

They can hate whoever they want to, for whatever good or bad reasons, but it seems very clear that there are a few Leeds so-called supporters who allow their hatred of Bates to damage the club, perhaps seriously.

And it is a few. A couple of thousand? Yeah, right, and Ed Balls understands economics. That’ll be a couple of hundred with strong feelings (mostly of hatred of Chelsea) and loud mouths, and eighteen hundred who just go along with the loudest opinionated know-all nearby because they don’t have the will or wit to figure out what’s sensible for themselves. Maybe they could consider ‘supporting’ Doncaster instead, where there’s plenty actually worth whingeing about. We’d be better off without them.

Anonymous

leeds for life who said its better than it was 5 or 6 years ago what do you base that on what is better about leeds united now than then ???answer nothing .
firstly ,forsell and varynen are not loans they are leeds united permanent signings ,would they be here in leeds had the supposed other signings had come off NO
we will move onto attendances and ED BALLS when we came down into championship from prem we got 32 .000 our attendances in league 1 average for the last season in there 23.000+ last season 26500+ this season 22.000+now thats 4000-minus now i know its early but thats still less 4000 now i would rather have ed balls than load of balls ,,
me and noone who goes to leeds wants leeds to loose even if it did piss bates off that is a ridiculous accusation and it is laughable ..

hatred of bates is justified in this case , based on this post as the post seems to be saying leeds fans hate bates because the fact he built a fucking museum but we are still winning and will justify his none spending ,,well the fact we are winning has fuck all to do with him ,as for white and lees would they be playing if the proposed transfers had landed no they would not ,so no is the answer, does grayson not see it in training if he did Connolly would have been playing all season and lees in the centre so people who hate bates carry on this is not the reason you hate him ..

lets go back to jonny Giles you sound like a Liverpool fan living in the good old days we will be having a Minuits silence for something next ,you sound like we have a conveyor belt of England internationals walking out of thorp arch ,leeds have always bought players and any that have walked out of thorp arch have been sold .smith ,delph to name 2 ..
i could not give a shit about the media but its better to have them than not its time to move on radio leeds for instance was the ears into the club for many elderly and disabled leeds fans who can not and never will have a dab radio bates has lost many a court case because of his gob too , bates has banned the bbc this time as they are doing a documentary about him that may find him to be the lying twat that took our club into admin the same with the guardian .
one of my closest friends is a current manager in football and a leeds united former player if you think that they hear what fans are singing never mind when they are whingeing and whats more they do not care so to say it affects the team is nonsense ,whats more there is no systemic whingeing at the ground there just isn’t the bates song is just a song to wind him up just like the manu song is and other songs ..

lastly you don not know me personally so you can not tell me what you think and either way i don not care you are a liar if you say that you thought lees and white were going to play so much for leeds this season because i bet grayson didn’t know that .

you do your leeds supporting as you see fit likewise i will do ,which is to go,do you really????? ,i do not care what other leeds fans do or say neither should you its opinions my posts this season and last have all been about bates and this season about lack of investment nothing else so to say i am disparaging about leeds brings me back to mr balls
i would much prefer if in the future you chose not to reply to my opinions if you don’t like them ignore them which is why i never replied to yours i jusr respected your opinion although you are wrong …

take care and enjoy your season however you watch leeds
ps sorry about grammar etc its late

LeedsForLife

Yes, it is late, and you really do type fast, don’t you? To be honest there are some parts where it’s a bit hard to understand your point, but the spirit of it is pretty clear!

We can escape from dealing with the liar thing, because I was careful not to mention Lees and White, only Clayton – who you did mention yourself at first, but not this time.

Yes, I’d forgotten those signings were permanent. I’ve become so used to loans seeming to be the only way we get players in.

Connolly? I have nothing against him myself and his presence seems to have helped Snodgrass, but if he’s such an obvious choice why did we play Lihaj last season when Connolly was available?

Putting Lees in the centre isn’t that obvious. Yes, it’s his natural position, but it carries a lot more responsibility. Mistakes at fullback are not good, but mistakes in the centre are likely to have much more immediate consequences. Lees is very inexperienced, of course, and more likely to make mistakes, so keeping him out of the centre for a while was reasonable enough. He had a good game against Portsmouth, but they didn’t pose much of a threat. It’s still risky putting such an inexperienced player in the centre of defence. Grayson is wise to be cautious about that. On the other hand, even inexperienced Lees may be less of a liability in the centre than some of the other options!

No, I don’t live in the good old days. I’m right here in the same present as you. But I’ve been supporting Leeds with some intensity for 45 years through big highs and deep lows, which has given me a lot of context for understanding what’s happening at present. I know that the club I love was half a gnat’s knacker from ceasing to exist, and leaving me without a big part of my reason for living, and that it didn’t because Bates refused to let it. I don’t like the unlikeable awkward old sod, but I’m very grateful to him for being uncompromising, bloody minded, belligerent and hard-nosed on behalf of Leeds Utd. Also I’ve seen the club go through financial astuteness and financial stupidity, and I’ve seen the awful consequence of the latter, and I’m glad to have a chairman who isn’t going to let that happen.

I’m not sure what your point is about Balls. He’s an incompetent dishonest fool, but I certainly wasn’t trying to compare you to him; that would be an insult too far. I was using him to stress my disagreement with your figure of 2000, but actually I’d misunderstood the point you were making, which was a bit unclear. I’d understood you to be talking about the amount of anti-Bates support, but you’re newer reply explains you meant reduction in crowd size. I don’t think you’ve explained why Bates is responsible for that reduction, though. I’d have thought attendances will improve as performances do. Or is there some other factor? Are people staying away because they don’t like the negativity in parts of the crowd, perhaps?

I’ve written somewhere else on this page about what’s better now than 5 or 6 years ago, which is not nothing, it’s just about everything.

Not all the players from TA have been sold, of course. Howson? Lees? White? Many others that came through the Leeds youth system played for many years. Reaney, Hunter, Lorimer, Cooper, etc etc. (You may not remember that, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen or that it’s not relevant today.) Delph and Smith were sold entirely because of the consequences of Ridsdale’s appalling financial mismanagement, but I’m not sure what point you were making about them. I’d still take issue with the view I thought you were expressing, that how much a club spends on players is the dominant indicator of successful management.

It’s the ones I don’t agree with that merit response. If I think someone’s wrong about something important, I have a duty to point out the mistake (or present the alternative view) for the sake of all the other readers, so they don’t see a mistaken (in my opinion) view is unchallenged, And there’s even a chance I might persuade the person I disagree with that they’re wrong, isn’t there? Okay, perhaps that’s not very likely.

Anyway, enough of this. Sorry I wound you up so much.

irving08

What puzzles me is why you actually ‘hate’ Bates ? Dislike him, OK; disapprove of his politics – fine; disagree on aspects of his strategy – sure ? But ‘hate’ – where does that come from ? Like LFL I too think Bates saved our club – and similarly think we are lucky to have someone of his mettle at the helm, given the hostiliity to Leeds that has existed for most of my footballing lifetime (1956 onwards). Like you, though, I am concerned at the fall in attendance, and would like the club to do much more to get youngsters back into the ground (for example, by using the now deserted North East Stand for schoolchildren on free school meals, supported with complementary tickets, and accompanied by their teachers). I am happy for us to be taking money from corporates – but (to borrow some of their mangled English) we need to grow new ‘fans’ (not customers). On the point of the effect of anti-Bates chanting on the team, I tend to agree with LFL – even if players don’t hear it, they read the press, webistes like this etc and it is simply not credible to maintain that it has no effect on them.

Anonymous

Irving ,Irving ,Irving the reason i hate bates is simple because whilst he was in the process of saving our club your words not mine ,,when he was not getting his own way
HE THREATENED TO LIQUIDATE IT !!!
its alright i am over it.
he has a long list of companies he has LIQUIDATED ..
Irving i always read your posts and 99.9%of the time you are the voice of reason in short i like what you write .
Its the 00.1% and your not alone who say bates saved our club alright he was the one chosen to invest but i would bet you a pound to a pinch of s##t had he not we would still be here .
I also feel that ultimately his take over after admin will eventually bring dark days for leeds united ,he will resign and it will be someone else who has to get us from the conference ,then there are still a million and 1 lies .
so remember he was the one who THREATENED TO LIQUIDATE US is that someone who wants to march on together he does not care he is here for our money ,

Had he not “saved us” we would still be here now if that person who saved us instead of bates had taken us to league 2 it would have been better simply because we wouldn’t have that bearded freak
there are dark days ahead in my opinion because of him it may take a while but watch this space !!!!!…..

PS it was £27 for and adult ticket on Saturday that left us with nearly 28.000 empty seats

Matthew

The only thing I could ever want from watching Leeds is for the team to at least play well, even if they lose, to me its not about winning the league(Although nice) or promotion(Again nice) but more watching a team I love do the best they can, I dislike watching a group of players who look disinterested or are playing like a Blue Square Premier side.

Matthew

Weighing into the Ken Bates discussion, I have nothing against the guy personally but dislike his treatment of fans being critical of his reign as owner of Leeds United, he needs to be more respectful to those with valid points and are showing him respect in return, I don’t mind him being aggressive towards those hating on him as a person but basically.

I think the wage cap needs a reasonable increase(Perhaps to a max of 15k a week) for some of our best players, if he can’t keep our best players at that much a week then simply put let them go, but at least show the fanbase you’re trying.

Secondly he needs to be more open with the fans about what is going on at the club.

And lastly, although I’ve never been one to say buy players for millions because it doesn’t always work, but at the very most Ken should support Simons potential transfer targets if they’re good, and if he can get on a free but would have to pay say 15k a week to get that players services(Point above)

I don’t believe money will buy success in this league, if anything you need to be smart with who you sign.

Anonymous

someone should ask this morning does ,Ross mccormack think the leeds back four cost him player of the month ,now i know its player of the month not team but i bet deep down he does .
these awards don’t matter unless your nominated !!!!!!

Matthew

Speaking of Ross, there are reports flying around that Norwich, more specifically Lambert is interested in buying him in Jan. Hopefully this is bullshit but just throwing this *Rumor* out there,

Walter

I’ve been indifferent about Leeds’s results ever since Bates took over. It’s good to know I’m not alone. I remember when we nearly got back to the Prem in 2005. The first wave of alienating the fans had happened and we had a pathetic average attendance of just 21,000, thanks to Bates’ prices, and the ridiculous propaganda that he ‘saved’ the club was in full swing. I watched us get demolished by Watford and I just didn’t care. It would be a sad day for football if a club with the pricing policy of Leeds United were to do well. Football isn’t about denying children and the working classes the right to follow their team, especially when the stadium is only 50% full most weeks. To be successful on the back of such a horrific policy would only encourage more Ken Bates’ into football and, even though my club is being decimated by the reign of a man who cares little for its history or future, I’d hate that to happen to fans elsewhere, even those I hate.